March's Here

March 3, 2013
Dear Mom and Dad,

Oh where do I start?  We had another baptism this weekend. It was for a girl named Nia. She is a 16 year old Tongan girl. The day before her baptism we were talking with her dad and found out that he got baptized like 35 years ago in Tonga. He just did it though because a group of friends all got baptized at the same time.. We found Nia while tracting! First person I have baptized that we found through our own efforts. That says a lot about how to be successful. She is making a big change in her life and it is awesome. She has always been kinda quiet but she is starting to gain more confidence in herself and in the Lord. She, a while ago while teaching her kinda asked some questions about missionary service. She was almost implying that she wanted to serve a mission one day. During her confirmation, our first counselor blessed her to one day serve a mission... now that's cool. She was baptized by one of our Priests named Ravine. He went through a rough patch in his life and turned it around too. I have seen him come back to church and get his priesthood. He goes to school with Nia and so it was cool to see both of them turn around and have this experience. That was by far my favorite thing this week. 

So today we finally get a real P-day.. it's been about 3 weeks......haha!

Sounds like our house is a major hub for fun stuff!  I think it always has been though. On my dilbert calendar I noticed that today is Australian labor day but they only recognize it in Western Australia. Those bacon donuts look really good but just donuts in general look really good! Their donuts here are just not the same :( I miss going to Bowmans. they have the best donuts.

I'm not really sure how little Timmy is doing,  (For those who don't know, Timmy is the doll used for their nativity pageant movie) I don't think anyone has fed him in a little while so... he might be severely malnourished. ;)  The idea for the movie was all Elder Smiler and Elder Flintoft the Maoris from New Zealand.. they are hilarious and always have crazy ideas!

I laughed pretty hard about Grants favorite train! I would've loved to be there, looked like it was a really fun thing. I'm guessing that there were probably about 50 yellow trains haha!! On a tradeoff once, there was this guy with a bunch of old train stuff in his yard.. he had actual trains and stuff. I was pretty excited to get some pictures with it but when we knocked on his door he just skuzzed us off and was really rude. What a mean guy.  He doesn't have the spirit of trains in him. 

I forgot to take pictures of the pants but I do remember one thing I need for my birthday. I need a new umbrella. I accidentally left mine at the chapel in Manly a while ago and then never saw it again. You can't get an umbrella like that anywhere. It has automatic retracting and also the double layers which protects against wind turninginsideoutification. It would be really valuable to have one of those for my birthday especially with the cold rainy season just ahead of that. 

Still don't know much about the mission split but that President Howes will be the Sydney North President and the South president will be a guy named Larry Lew from the states. The north HQ will still be at the temple grounds and the South HQ in Mortdale (which is my Zone) will be used again. that's all I know so far :) Still waiting to start Visa Papers but I'll get those taxes done in the mean time. No worries!

Have a great week and say Hi to everyone for me!

Love, Elder Thompson